Friday, August 01, 2008

Update: Comcast and BTN Outside the Midwest

If true, this would be awesome (for people in DC, mind you). Yesterday I received an email from a higher-up PR person from Comcast’s East Coast regional office. This is a different person than the one who contacted me before, for what it’s worth:

“[Nick] - I wanted to share some good news, which is that I can now confirm that we will make the “overflow” BTN feeds available to our customers throughout DC. I do not yet have the specific channel locations, but I know you were anxious for updates so wanted to let you know that they will be available.”

I remain skeptical for three reasons: (1) She’s a PR person, and seeing that Comcast was having its Customer Service Reps tell callers that they were going to add the BTN prior to last season, maybe this is just an attempt to keep me from switching to another provider (for the time being, at least). (2) Two separate impeccable “sources,” one of which works for Comcast, told me as late as 2 days ago that the temporary plan was to have just one overflow feed. (3) I’m a pessimist.

I’ll try to be optimistic about this, though, because I’ve dealt with this lady before and she seems honest, and both of my “sources” did indicate that no final decision regarding overflow feeds had been made. Plus, the email pasted above is the most recent and most “official” communication I’ve received, and it's from a high-level employee. Fingers crossed…

And to clarify – BTN is definitely being added to the Sports Tier in DC, as evidenced by the recent message that popped up on my cable box: “August 15, 2008 Comcast of the District, LLC is adding the following channels to the Sports & Entertainment Package: Big Ten Network on 257, HRTV on 259, and TV Games on 260.”

So we might find out the overflow details in 2 weeks, or we might have to wait until August 30th (the first day of games) to see what the real deal is. I urge all fans, even those in DC, to continue to call Comcast (1-800-COMCAST) to find out the setup in your area. If Comcast doesn’t know that there is demand for the overflow feeds, they certainly won’t add them.